An Update for March, 2018

Allos! I’ve been a little busy lately on several art-related things and wanted to update you guys on them before the end of the month. I’m hoping to improve my weekly habits so that I can post more frequently. I have also considered starting a YouTube channel for my various projects. As it stands, I would like to create some music for the inevitable timelapse portions before I begin. Regardless, onto what I have been working on as of late!

First, I have continued work on assets for a 3D computer game. As I wrote in the previous post, the idea for the game is far from settled, and the subject matter of my work is variable. To make the most of my work, I have been practicing new skills that can complement any kind of project!

Isabelle

This dog might look a tiny bit familiar if you have spend some time crawling the older posts on this blog. This is my parents’ dog, Isabelle, in a 3D cartoon form. I was trying to create a character that would work in a 3D platform game, and I feel that the result is passable. I enjoy working with a limited palette and using lighting that “steps” down sharply; it provides a very crunchy, Nintendo DS-like style.

But modeling characters is hardly a new process for me — I’ve worked with Blender for several years. I wanted to practice animation with this model. Isabelle, being a quadruped, is difficult to animate. Here is the result of what I was able to come up with in GIF format:

Yeah, it’s a little odd. I still have to work out more natural movement and practice animation more often.

Cat Drawing (Work in Progress)

I’ve been working on another drawing — this time, for a couple of friends. They saw the drawing of my pet snake and wanted to know if I could try drawing their cat. The picture above shows the initial pencil work. Drawing from a photograph is a fairly easy process for me, so I wanted to work a bit of challenge into the drawing. I chose to fully render the chevron pattern on the right pillow as a result. However, I was unhappy with how messy it appeared in initial pencil layout, so I reworked it before starting on the ink. I used a similar process to the one used for the bricks in this post, if you are curious.

The Scream (Adaptation)

Can be found on my DeviantArt Account, here.

And, finally, this is my completed adaptation of Edvard Munch’s The Scream. Similar to the cat picture, I drew this for a coworker who wanted “something with skulls.” I thought this image would be a neat twist on the original idea using my “surreal morbid” themes from Sepulchre and Knight.

I’m alright with how the picture came out, though I had a few hiccups along the way that impacted the final quality of the image. For instance, in the original works (there were four versions, I believe), Munch had the fjord in the background while mine originally treated the walkway like a dock — with the water in the foreground. I fixed this, but ultimately sacrificed the fidelity of the water as a result. Also, doing this left a lot of unused space in the foreground. With the major overhaul of the surrounding tones, I also lost the gnarled look of the figure’s hands — which are bent and broken like dried twigs. It comes across a little better in real life, but I think it really emphasizes my need to cease my HB-Only obsession.

Otherwise, my satisfaction with the piece comes mainly from three aspects — the figure is pale (while most of my other figures in this theme are “ashen”), the background is complete (I’ve been challenging myself to do this as of late), and the sky is actually smooth (quite a feat, given the grit of the cheap sketchbook paper).

I gave the original to my coworker shortly after its completion. This will probably end up being my final “morbid” piece — at least for a while. There is definitely more to explore in the subject, but I want to practice other, more marketable things as I attempt to begin my career in art.

I still have a few ideas for posts in the future and am currently working on another subject I’ve been meaning to tackle for a long time. I’ll update you guys when that is ready!

3D Game Asset Creation

Allos again! Today’s post will cover my work in a very different medium from what I usually write about here. Namely: computer modeling using Blender.

This is hardly my first time using the software, and I am pretty knowledgeable about its various features. However, considering that I am mostly concerned with game development, the inner-workings of its software renderer have remained a mystery to me. The reason for this is simple: my brother is writing a custom engine using C++ and OpenGL, and the representation in Blender’s software renderer is both inaccurate and mostly irrelevant for this purpose.

So, then, what exactly is it that I am aiming to achieve with this artwork? Well, as you will soon notice, I am certainly not going for a realistic art style. There are a number of reasons for this, such as my skills in modeling leaving a good bit be desired as well as the fact that realistic artwork takes a long time to produce. And I have a lot of work ahead of me as it is — this game is supposed to be something of an open-world RPG. Speaking to my limited skill and the necessity of hopefully finishing a game within the century, I am trying to stick to a comparatively low-fidelity style of artwork.

But this doesn’t mean that I am just trying to suck when it comes to the project’s art. No, there is a bit of a method behind it. Essentially, I am trying to make artwork with a quality somewhere between Quake by Id Software and The Elder Scrolls: Arena by Bethesda Softworks. As a result, the models are blocky and sharp, the textures are grainy, and the palette is a bit “funky” — metals are bluish with spots of brown, for instance.

Here are some models by themselves:

Hatchet or War-Axe

Lantern

Shield

Of the three, I think the best is the hatchet; it was the first model I made for the game and I wanted to really work to capture the style. The end goal of all of this is to create a small scene reminiscent of the apprentice mages’ quarters in The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim.

Scene thus Far…

I decided to take this piecemeal approach because I was finding it difficult to visualize the shape of the room without a good bit of clutter to accompany it.

As of now, the game is in its pre-embryonic stages (clearly), and much of this is subject to change. We might scrap the idea entirely, or stick with it to the end. Either way, I figured it would be good to write about my work in a different medium. The more intense, technical details, will come later as my brother and I continue to work on the game. I will be sure to update you all on these things as well.

Chip, damn you!

Minor Update for January 2018

Allos again! It seemed time to finally (finally) put out an update. Work’s been a bit tough lately — I blame the holidays — and I’ve been trying to find freelance jobs that will allow me to spend more time doing what I enjoy. I also took an unneeded break from making artwork, namely because I could not find any good inspiration for things I wanted to draw. Well, things appear to be looking up in that regard; I was able to work on a number of things that expanded my horizons.

In any case, on to the art!

Exhumation

 Can be found on my DeviantArt, here.

This was another of those lunch-time sketches that I’ve been working on for roughly a month. It was inspired by videos of exhumations. I don’t know why, but I was intrigued by the way rainwater would seep into a burial vault and remain trapped there, slowly flooding the casket and leaving the body in a grim soup… That’s disgusting, heh!

In any case, this was the piece that served as my warm-up for getting back into art. I needed to draw something. I think the shaky start is visible in the quality of the piece; the dark areas have little definition and the wrinkles don’t make a whole lot of sense.  I did put a lot more work into the body beneath than is actually visible, but I lost that detail when I “flooded” the casket. I suppose there’s a bit of irony there.

At’thania Atka (Color Version)

 Can be found on my DeviantArt, here.

O.K. To be fair, this isn’t a new piece. Rather, it’s an old one that I decided to color digitally. However, it does demonstrate my first real leap into working with color on a piece of my finished artwork.

 See that gallery? Finally, some color!

It took about four hours. I used Krita to multiply in the color layers, as per the advice of numerous artists on YouTube. I also colored Magwalbi — as can be seen in that picture of my gallery — but don’t feel like I did as good of a job with it. I’ll redraw that dog one of these days, and give him a more professional style…

Slinkster

 Also can be found on my DeviantArt, here.

And this is what I spent a good few hours working on last night: an image of my pet corn snake. I did this in ballpoint pen, as per the suggestion of my brother. He really likes the look of my ink work, and I haven’t worked in the medium in quite a while. I started with pencil guidelines, as always, and completed the shading and outlines in pen. The ferns in the background, with their variable hatching took by far the longest out of anything in this drawing. In the end, I kind of like the effect they produced. What do you guys think?

That’s it for this update. I am working on some more artwork to the side of this that I hope to document here, soon. I also have a new composition method that I’ve been meaning to try out and demonstrate for a friend — I believe I’m something along the order of four months late on that one, heh!